Arriving in Seattle

We arrived in Seattle. I did not find the time to write in the last days, but will try to sum up what happened. The amount of luggage we took with us was enormous, even though we reduced it over and over again. We left Leer, Germany, on August 10th by train, switched trains in Gronningen, Netherlands and arrived just before dinner time in Schipol Amsterdam airport. Unfortunately we were not able to check in for the next morning already - but found a baggage store, thus only taking hand luggage to the airport hotel. The kids loved the hotel, 6th floor, complete view across the airport while lying in bed. Is there anything better for a 3.5 year old? Ok there is, the flight across the Atlantic the next day is at least as good. Breakfast was great, unfortunately not enough time to enjoy it in detail, since we planned to check in early to get us seated closer together.

The flight was surprisingly unspectacular. I expected a KLM flight, a few weeks ago found out it is operated by NorthWest and boarded finally a DeltaAirlines plane. Knowing the KLM service I was not sure what to expect from Delta. The service was much less than expected, no kids menu, no small kid entertainment what so ever - for the adults it was ok. Anyway the kids coped perfectly. We brought a bag full of drawing, playing and reading stuff with us and used all of it during the 10 hour flight. Even Narne did well. Finally: Arriving in Seattle, immigrations, customs, unfortunately an extra agriculture scan and finally a longer than expected trip to the rental car company. My parents got their rental car voucher, myself trying to rent a second car. A ridiculous expensive offer from ThriftyCars – 4 days rental of a compact size car with minimum insurance is supposed to be MUCH more expensive than the minivan my parents did rent for 18 days including all insurances … we decided on doing a lease for only 3 days since we needed the car and were too tired to check other companies.

We made our way from the airport to the Fountleroy ferry – found it reasonable fast and relaxed for the first time on the ferry overlooking the Puget Sound. Only a couple minutes later we arrived in Southworth. 10 minutes after that: the holiday home – direct on the beach, perfect to relax, large enough for all of us, affordable luxury.

The next day was only used for recovering from the jet lag. All of us seven woke up at 3 o’clock local time but managed to get some sleep afterwards again. Second night we all woke up at 4 – weird but true! By now we are over jet lag and even got several things done. We have been

• looking intensely at several rental houses
• got used to the Seattle-way of naming streets (very easy once you understand it)
• reactivated my US bank account
• did hours and hours of internet-research about, available houses, areas, driver licenses, taxes and such
• double checked some prejudices I had about America
• seen Mt Rainer
• broke open and eaten a crab
• wondering how future will be like
• enjoying the ferry ride home to nature and view from our holiday day home in the evenings, overlooking the Puget sound, Seattle downtown and Mt Rainer

Not really much happened since then though the days were packed: had my first American Hamburger since my time in San Diego (one once a month should be OK from now), made a camp fire with sausages, cooked blackberry jam from a harvest around the house, seen seals and a heron from our porch, got new children-car-seats.

We really hope that we sign a lease for a house within the next 48 hours, thus we can start to furnish the house with stuff prior to leaving the holiday home. I think I will be able to relax a bit more once I know that we found a place to stay – not knowing where, leaves me a bit restless.

Soon more - once I find time on a more regular basis to write. This is likely to happen as soon as we got: a home, internet, a car, furniture, our shipped equipment, an idea of our neighborhood, … . As you can see, don’t expect to regular post from me, but I will try to keep you informed as good as possible!